1. Technical Field
The technical field is molding systems. More specifically, the technical field relates to molding processes in which curing fluid is delivered to multiple parts of a molding platen during injection.
2. Related Art
Traditional resin-delivering systems used in resin transfer molding (RTM) and vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) use plastic tubing connected to a mold at vent and resin gate locations. The resin gates allow resin to be injected into a mold cavity. In such processes it is often desirable to deliver resin to multiple locations of the mold cavity with specific timing. If multiple gates and vents are required for flow control purposes, a large network of tubing is required. After the molding process is complete, the tubing contains cured resin, and cannot be reused in a subsequent process. The repeated replacement of tubing adds cost to the molding operation, increases the complexity of the operation, and increases the time required for each molding operation.
Therefore, a need exists for a molding process that avoids the large amount of material waste and that does not require excessive time, and a system for carrying out such a molding process.